On 5 February 2014 03:54, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless to >>>> ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is >>> consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain >>> activity. >>> So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully? >> >> >> It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to >> ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial >> question. > > > Not sure if a body can refer to anything (but we can say that, as an abuse > of language to be short). > > The question, it seems to me, remains: why a person (using her body) could > not refer to an epiphenomenon? > Why would that be meaningless? Why asking those question would be > meaningless? > > If I tell you "I feel myself conscious right now"? Is that meaningless? > It is meaningless that I hope you find that plausible? > > And is it meaningless to ask such question? > > May be, that's possible, but I need some justification. Without it, it looks > just like "don't try to understand, don't search, don't ask". > > I do think that the modal logic will provide a *very* powerful tool to see > many nuances and possibilities in this context.
To be clear, what I find problematic is the question of whether consciousness can cause someone to refer to it. It can't do this by definition if it's epiphenomenal. However, you can declare that you are conscious and while the declaration is explainable in purely physical terms, it may be associated with actual consciousness. Perhaps this is nitpicking. >>> Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and consciousness >>> is >>> only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p, but >>> still >>> a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p phenomenon, why >>> not? >>> >>> Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an epiphenomenon? >> >> >> We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet >> we can still refer to it. > > > May be we cannot [explain why it apparently has no effect on matter yet we > can still refer to it]. > > But if that is the case, the question remains: why? And here, comp, and the > arithmetization of metarithmetic, can explain, for similar questions, why we > cannot explain some truth. > > I think we can't decide that something does not need to be explained, above > the more elementary assumptions. > I think that is Craig's fuel, and no comp fuel, to take sense has > fundamental. Epiphenomenalism has also that air of "let us not try to > understand". > > You confirm my feeling that "epiphenomenalism" is used by admitting or > introducing a bet on an explanation gap. Some explanation gap is there > indeed, but I think we can entirely explain it. This leads to a sort of > miracle: consciousness has a role, even in the physical events. Mind can > "act" on matter. (cf atomic bombs and computers), and this without violating > the physical laws. But eventually it makes the physical laws emerging on > something non physical (which comp allows to limit on arithmetical truth or > combinators truth, ...). I don't believe that mind can act on anything except in a manner of speaking, but again maybe this is nitpicking. The important thing is that if mind had separate causal efficacy we would observe miraculous events in the brain, and we don't observe such events. Even with comp in the absence of a basic physical reality, you could say there is no *reason* why subjectivity should exist - it just does. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
